


drink and the devil had done for the rest

by Goldmonger



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Civil War (Marvel), Creepy Brock Rumlow, Fun With Villains, Gen, Origin Story, Suicidal Thoughts, all invited to the evil maniacal laughter club, because brock is just a delight, brock rumlow - Freeform, jk he's a total douche, mentions of rape/extreme violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 02:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5566111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldmonger/pseuds/Goldmonger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brock Rumlow doesn't die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	drink and the devil had done for the rest

**Author's Note:**

> None of these characters belong to me, obvs.

_They’ve even given you a name._

I have a name.

_No – a superhero name. Like Iron Man, or the Hulk._

Or Captain fucking America.

_Yeah, I guess._

Well. What is it?

_Oh you’ll love this. ‘Crossbones’. Neat, huh?_

It sounds retarded.

_Oh come on. Raleigh in Comms thought of it. Like how you wore your holster across your chest? And your ink, she mentioned that too._

Sounds like a fucking cartoon pirate.

_It’s cool. You’re gonna go down in history, just like Red Skull. It’s badass!_

I don’t care about that. I’ve got people I want to erase from history entirely.

_That’s gonna be hard to do._

That’s why I’m the one that’s going to do it.

*

 

The fire was everywhere.

When he was conscious, he begged the doctors to kill him. After a few instances of this, he broke one surgeon’s nose and was found by security dragging himself across the operation theatre, reaching for the scalpel that had skittered a few feet away in the struggle. One member of the detail vomited when he saw the clumpy residue that followed Rumlow like a bloody snail trail.

He caught moments here and there; white masks peeling off entire yards of his epidermis and dumping them in a steel tray, distant barked orders from military personnel, and the silence in an empty ward that was so loud it hurt his ears.

Then the blackness would envelop him, and when he woke next it was to a nurse refilling his IV bag.

The next time his eyelids fluttered of their own accord, he was met with the grim, coarse face of a man whose frown lines made him look older than his years. Rumlow’s body was stiff, and the skin on his face cracked horribly when he tried to talk or blink or wince in pain. He smelled rather than immediately felt the pus and blood that started trickling down his temple, stale and foul as it meandered into the scabbed creases around his mouth and eyes and stung the raw flesh underneath.

Rumlow’s shallow breaths whistled in and out of his only nostril as he scrambled to make some comprehensible sound, but the fire, ever-hungry, made it difficult. The man nevertheless tried to speak to him, his voice lilting with a smooth German accent that oozed from him like oil. Rumlow watched him through watering eyes as best he could, relinquishing control when the pain once again overrode his sense of self, and the pitiful whimpers began to tear their way up his throat. The man seemed to give up then, abruptly summoning a nurse in a flurry of movement.

Rumlow watched him leave in a groggy purgatory of semi-consciousness, wondering how many more Nazis were going to surface now that both SHIELD and Hydra had gone under, and what they wanted from the charred husk that was left of him.

He later learned they’d put him in a medical coma for a few weeks, and that familiar sensation of helpless fury coursed through him when he realised they could have left him in it permanently.

“No can do, bro,” shrugged one nurse when he’d demanded sedation in a raspy monotone.  The man was stocky and pockmarked and smelled of cheese, and his jaw ground away relentlessly at a piece of gum while he spoke. It was mesmerising to Rumlow, who followed the movement like a ticking clock.

“Boss says we gotta get you up and about soon. Stuff to do, people to kill, all that jazz.”

He’d glanced around, then winked conspiratorially at Rumlow, his chin rotating up, and down, and up, and down.

“Hail Hydra and all that. Big fan, dude.”

Rumlow was a soldier, and a special agent, and a trained killer. He’d been taught how to endure torture and interrogation by hostiles and how to survive under the harshest environmental conditions imaginable for a living person. He knew nine different kinds of martial arts and had terminated countless targets, without remorse, all for the betterment of the human race. He’d long enjoyed the feeling of invincibility throughout his career, particularly when it involved asserting his dominance over others.

But this _fire_ , this was what his grandmomma had meant when she told him and his brothers about hell.

 

*

 

Rumlow wanted to die for several weeks, but as time went on, he found an anchor; a beautiful sense of purpose that distracted him enough to leave the fire starving for oxygen – at least until the fantasy was interrupted by doctors with needles and suction nozzles.

Rumlow thought a great deal about killing, rather than dying.

He thought about the Asset, and Captain Rogers, and the cold rage would solidify to ice inside his mind. Ice that not even the terrible fire could melt.

When Rumlow was scheduled for an alcohol sponge bath or the nurses had to change the dressings on his burns, he liked to picture Captain Rogers strung up like a turkey for Thanksgiving slaughter. He imagined the Asset strapped to his old chair, having his brains fried for hours, days, weeks, until he was reduced to a drooling vegetable sitting in his own filth. Rumlow went through the mental motions of beating Captain Rogers to the brink of death, letting the serum heal him, then coming back day after day after day to repeat the process. Sometimes, he beat Rogers in front of the Asset, or forcibly removed the Asset’s cybernetic attachment with vibranium pliers and hydrochloric acid. In Rumlow’s favourite daydreams, that took days to do. By then, the Asset was begging for death, just as Rumlow had been, and just like Rumlow, he wasn’t granted it.

Sam Wilson surfaced occasionally, wings torn from his back as he plummeted to his death, and the Romanoff bitch splayed across a table to really get him off. On lazier days he entertained the idea of wiping the Asset just enough to turn him on Rogers, and letting them hash it out like cocks on steroids while he cracked open a beer.

He told the ugly nurse about his plans and the man grinned, popping gum between his teeth. The powerful scent of artificial strawberry sweeteners mixed with severe halitosis wafted towards Rumlow on the AC’s current.

“Rad, man. Like that shit’s legit, you know what I mean?” He chuckled to himself as he wrapped Rumlow up like the Egyptian Pharaohs of old, his body and limbs encased in white linen. Spots of red were appearing already.

“You’re gonna scar like a motherfucker,” sighed the nurse, but his apparent sympathy didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Don’t worry though,” he said, a pink smile creeping up his cheeks like a rash. “The boss is importing a little something special to help you along the road to recovery.”

Rumlow didn’t know if it was amphetamines, PCP, a knockoff of Erskine’s serum or tiger blood, but one week later, a thin-lipped Russian scientist came into the ward, exchanging terse words with the nurses and holding a large silver briefcase. She approached Rumlow with an expression of distaste, and went about replacing his IV while the doctors and nurses stood by apprehensively. Rumlow’s new best friend chewed his Hubba Bubba loudly with his mouth open in excitement, throwing Rumlow a thumbs-up every few minutes.

The first thing he noticed was the retreat of the fire, and the withering of the phantom flames that had licked at his body for months. The heat was there one minute, crisping his very bones – and then, as the scientist stepped away, the bliss of relief washed over him, a damp towel on scalded skin.

He was aware of many eyes on him as he waited for the kickback of these mystery meds – vomiting, maybe, or muscle spasms. Not that he’d care much; being taken out of the fire was worth it. But it didn’t happen. The doctors and military personnel began to mill around, returning to their duties after several minutes when nothing started sizzling. The scientist remained still, occasionally snapping orders at subordinates in biting Russian. Rumlow wondered faintly what she and the others were waiting for, but it drifted to the back of his mind as sleep descended on him, for once untroubled and not induced.

Hours later, when the scientist’s eyes were goring holes in his head and hunger was gnawing at him, Rumlow ruefully sat up and stretched. It took him a moment to realise he was able to do so without ripping his skin apart like wet paper.

He looked down at his bare arms and legs in shock, and curled his fingers into a fist experimentally. The tissue had knit together into a sinuous quilt of flesh, ugly and salmon-coloured but flexible. The tectonic scabs that had armoured him for months ( _years_ ) ( _decades_ ) had melted into something else - not what he used to have, and certainly nothing aesthetically pleasing, but it allowed him to be mobile. Scars upon scars webbed his body, a pale map of where the fire had gorged itself. He traced them with a finger of melted candlewax, and was only mildly unnerved when he felt nothing. He saw his fingernails were gone, too.

“It worked.”

Rumlow turned automatically to the scientist, who was speaking in disgruntled tones to someone vaguely familiar. He strained his recent memory, which was mostly foggy anyhow, and came up blank.

“As I knew it would.”

The soft German timbre was like a slap to the face. Of course. The mystery man from his bedside. Rumlow clenched and unclenched his hand as though trying to get a hold of his slippery temperament, new as he was to the strange landscape of his mutilated body. His adrenaline spiked when the man spun around, his face twisted into a smile. It looked forced, like someone invisible was holding up the corners of his mouth with meat hooks.

“Brock, my dear man. You look so much better.” The German proffered his hand and Rumlow took it briefly, his suspicion rising as the man sat back in a fold-out chair next to him.

“What… did you do… to me?” said Rumlow with considerable effort – his throat still felt like he’d swallowed a handful of thumbtacks. The German now wore a neutral expression.

“Why, we fixed you up, Brock. Aren’t you happy with your newly healed body?”

“I look… like a pizza.”

The German smiled horribly again. “Indeed. But hopefully a supremely efficacious pizza.”

Rumlow narrowed his eyes, still testing out the agility of his hand, now almost obsessively.

“You German fucks… you’re always… fuckin’… with people.”

The German reclined in his chair, appearing oddly smug.

“That’s how you get ahead in the world, my dear man.”

Rumlow inhaled deeply, fear unfurling in his gut.

“Am I… enhanced… now?”

The German actually snorted, straightening the lapels of his purple jacket and appraising him with renewed incredulity. “Goodness, no,” he said, his evident amusement grating against Rumlow. He was getting impatient.

“Then… _what_.”

“You’re remade,” said the German simply. “A soldier, again. Don’t you want to be a soldier again, Brock?”

Rumlow was aware that his breaths had become painfully loud as he fought to maintain his composure. He wondered how far he could push this new skin till it bled.

“Of course.”

The German beamed, flashing a set of yellowed teeth and getting to his feet in one swift motion.

“Marvellous. Well, Brock, Doctor Vasilieva informs me that you should be up and about within a day or two. I expect you to report to me as soon as you are in the clear.”

He inclined his head and made as if to leave, but Rumlow coughed out an objection. The German waited politely until Rumlow had cleared his lungs of phlegm.

“Who… are you?”

The German bared his teeth again in a heinous parody of a smile. “Helmut Zemo. You may address me as ‘Baron Zemo’. A formality, but an important one, I’m afraid.”

“You… Hydra?”

“What’s left of it. I’m a student of Johann Schmidt’s work.”

Rumlow took a deep breath and fixed Zemo with a fierce, unblinking glare.

“Are you gonna… kill Captain America?”

Zemo raised an eyebrow, an echo of his earlier mockery. “You would object to this?”

“If you… do it… without me… I would.”

“Why Brock, I do believe we’re going to get on like a house on fire.”

Rumlow responded with a vicious smile of his own, his hands in tight fists that he instinctively knew would have no trouble packing a punch. Maybe even with more power than he possessed as a whole man.

“Yes… sir. I have… some people… to thank… for my condition.”

 

*

 

 

It’s gone now. You can’t even see it under the scars.

_Still. It’ll have a meaning for you._

Fuck that bullshit. I’m not dressing up like a damn clown just because I got drunk during a tour and decided to get a tattoo.

_It’s a discernible identity. Don’t you want people to remember you?_

Not the mission objective.

_It is if you want to inspire fear. Like Red Skull did! All about intimidation._

Explosions are intimidating enough.

_You’re laying siege to the IFID, killing Captain America and incriminating the Winter Soldier. When the new order rolls around you’re not gonna want to be nameless, trust me._

You’ve really thought about this.

_Hell yeah, bro! I’m gonna be called ‘Crimson Storm’ or something awesome when I get t-_

You talk. An awful lot. And that chewing. Is fucking annoying.

_crack_

That’s better.

_slump_

‘Crossbones’. Jesus take the wheel.

 

*

 

As it turned out, Rumlow’s uniform ended up in the armoury the day before they were set to ship out to Berlin. It was black and bare, and it reminded him of the Asset, which sent a tidal wave of disgust and anger washing over his pride. He grabbed a stick of chalk from the equipment locker in the gym, and set about scratching away at the plated metal and Kevlar, humiliation disguised in fervent assaults on the carefully tailored garments. He worked particularly hard on defacing the helmet, with had a mask latched on as he’d requested. If he was going to hide his face he was going to do so behind a more disturbing one; he refused be another deadly mannequin. He wasn’t a brainless weapon to be used and treated as such. He was a soldier, an autonomous agent. He was valuable as an individual, and he _would_ make them remember him.

He’d gouged white skid marks into the vest and covered the helmet in more of the same. They’d allowed him to utilise the same style of holster he’d boasted as a SHIELD operative, two thick straps crossed under the vest and belted in front with uniform pockets and scabbards for weaponry. Rumlow observed his handiwork with a grunt of approval.

“Fuckin’ Crossbones,” he muttered, running his fingers over the mask. It still sounded moronic in his head, but he probably would look more insane than stupid out there. That was acceptable, since he’d be wielding something slightly more theatrical than his old SIG-Sauer anyway. Rumlow huffed out a breath.

“Yo ho ho, motherfuckers.”

**Author's Note:**

> Every time you comment or give kudos a puppy is born


End file.
